One paragraph about November 12, 2018

There was no school for the older two due to Veteran’s Day, so we had “brunch,” not to be fancy but because everyone was hungry mid-morning. We went to Atticus, a restaurant and bookstore we like to frequent in downtown New Haven, where I once proclaimed, “If you ever want a book, I will always buy you a book,” and have sort of regretted that statement ever since because they want one every time. Gabe ordered French toast and was dismayed to find, upon its arrival, that it had “fruits” in it, the result of this particular French toast being made from one of the delicious breads baked from scratch at this restaurant, and the delicious bread in question was a sourdough dried fruit and nut bread. He proceeded to accuse me of “not telling him about the bread” and my responding that I thought he had read it on the menu because “you are a seven-year-old who can read” and them him crying a few actual tears because of this injustice. I was ready to get angry and call this whole morning - this whole day - off, but he was so adorable with a new haircut, sitting there, actually crying real tears and realized that he was just very hungry and truly, totally dismayed that what he’d ordered hadn’t turned out the way he’d so excitedly planned, and that he simply didn’t want “stuff” in his otherwise excellent French toast. Later I told J that I so badly wanted to give up, explain why he couldn’t act that way, get out of there. But I summoned the tiniest bit of energy, enough to get up and move to the chair next to him, where I joked with him about his out-of-proportion reaction to something so minor as a raisin. We found some good bites that were unmarred and I fed him a couple, like he was a toddler again. It was fun. Fun enough to save us.